Microsoft and Salesforce

salesforceMicrosoft has announced a global strategic partnership with Salesforce that will lead to integration between their flagship products: Salesforce and Office 365

Microsoft and Salesforce have announced a global strategic partnership to integrate their products and services.

The integration points between the two companies have been outlined in a press release:

  • Salesforce1 for Windows and Windows Phone 8.1.
    Enable customers to access Salesforce and run their business from Windows devices. A preview is planned to be available in fall 2014 with general availability in 2015.
  • Salesforce for Office 365.
    New interoperability between Salesforce and Office 365 will give customers access to the content they need to collaborate, sell, service and market from virtually anywhere. Including the ability to:

    • Access, share, edit and collaborate on Office content from within Salesforce and on Salesforce1 using Office Mobile, Office for iPad and Office 365.
    • Use OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online as integrated storage options for Salesforce.
    • Use Salesforce and Outlook together with a new Salesforce App for Outlook.
    • Connect Salesforce data to Excel and Power BI for Office 365 to visualize information and find new insights.

Given Microsoft’s own investment in CRM as a platform via its Dynamics range, and Salesforce also having partnerships with Microsoft rivals such as Box for document storage, it’s an interesting development.

Source: Microsoft press release